1981, Almost Blue sleevenote

[And No Coffee Table]

Story Behind the Song: 'A Good Year for the Roses'
Dave Paulson, dnpaulson@tennessean.com 11:07 a.m. CDT July 25, 2014

Jerry Chesnut did everything he was supposed to do, but during one fateful spring he couldn't save his prized Hybrid Tea Roses, which lined the walk of his home on Old Hickory Lake. It wasn't his fault — as he was told, it simply wasn't "A Good Year for the Roses."

That phrase eventually inspired him to write a country classic, made famous by George Jones in 1970, and a decade later by pop renaissance man Elvis Costello. Chesnut recalled writing the tune in a talk with Bart Herbison, executive director of Nashville Songwriters Association International.

Do you remember the day that you wrote this legendary tune? What inspired you?

That's a pretty good story. I lived out on the lake. I built a house out there. My brother told me I needed to be out there. He said it's "prestigious" to be out there (laughs). So I bought a lot on the lake and moved out on Lake Terrace Drive and hired this guy to build a house. He put in the budget $5,000 (for landscaping). We're talking about a long time ago. That was a lot of money for landscaping, which is just going to put a row of something around the house. I didn't even know what it was. I said, "Just leave that out of there, and I'll landscape it myself."

There's a sidewalk coming up through there, and I went (to a garden center) and bought a bunch of Jackson & Perkins Hybrid Tea Roses. I put them all the way up that walk. I did everything you're supposed to do, and put cottonseed hulls around them. I had one, I remember, was a big Oklahoma, and that thing was almost black, it was so red. It just did great. It had great big petals, about an eighth of an inch thick.

That fall, I trimmed them all back like you're supposed to, and the next spring ... they got great big buds on them, nearly as big as a baseball. Then, the buds just started falling off. I called that garden center and said, "What's wrong with these roses?" He said, "Jerry, we've had a wet spring. It's rained nearly every day, and roses don't like a lot of water. To be honest with you, it's just not been a good year for roses."

So later on, I'm living out on the farm. I left there and bought a 117-acre valley farm out between Joelton and Springfield. I was in my writing room and just thinking at about 4 or 5 o'clock in the morning and letting my mind wander like it does a lot of time when it's not supposed to.

I got thinking about those roses. "I wonder if they'd have done good if I'd brought them out here? ... What if it'd been a good year for roses, but everything else was going to pot? If the man's wife was leaving, the baby's crying, and the dog's died? The whole world's going to pot, but the roses are just blooming like crazy." I just started writing the song like that.

Everybody's recorded this song. Of course we know George Jones, but who else?

Elvis Costello. After George had done it, and it went No. 1, I started getting telegrams: "Congratulations on the Elvis Costello record."... I thought it was an Elvis (Presley) imitator, probably. Or maybe (comedian) Lou Costello's boy. I had no idea who it was. I found out later on. Back then, it made a lot of money. The first check we got in was $60,000, just for airplay in the British Isles. I said, "What is this guy?" They said, "He's punk rock." I said, "Maybe that's the direction I want to go in."

— Compiled by Dave Paulson, The Tennessean

[And No Coffee Table]

RIP Wayne Kemp, the writer of two songs covered by EC: "Darling, You Know I Wouldn't Lie" (co-written by Red Lane) and "Image of Me."

http://www.tennessean.com/story/enterta ... /24700383/